Charlotte Preston

Charlotte Preston Charlotte Preston is a Certified Somatic Experiencing® therapist based in Dorset, UK, working with adults, teenagers and groups.

She specialises in somatic approaches: Somatic Experiencing trauma therapy, bodywork & movement practices. I offer embodied movement group classes & one-to-one somatic therapy, online and in-person in Poole, Dorset, UK. I work with yoga, qigong, somatic movement, reiki, massage therapy and I'm currently training in Somatic Experiencing.

29/12/2025

Something I've been experiencing lately is a feeling of a plateau, or a transition phase. And also strongly a sense that there's integration happening. It feels necessary to be here now.

Do you relate to this idea, of seasons and periods of contraction, expansion and transition... and if so, which phase are you in? It would be great to hear from you in the comments below

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Important reminder, especially so for this time of year. Let's make it clear 🤍Loved this post from
26/12/2025

Important reminder, especially so for this time of year. Let's make it clear 🤍

Loved this post from

Hiya, how are you doing? Seasons greetings. I very much appreciate being connected with you here. I felt like writing th...
26/12/2025

Hiya, how are you doing?

Seasons greetings. I very much appreciate being connected with you here.

I felt like writing this post because this time of year can bring up a lot. Sometimes there can be the sense that if we're feeling anything other than comfort and joy, we must be doing something wrong. But it makes sense if you're feeling a lot, so let's make this less taboo...

For many people, the holidays heighten loneliness, grief, physical symptoms, comparison, and old emotional patterns. It can feel disorienting when the outside world is focused on celebration, while your nervous system is stretched, tired, or asking for less.

If you’re not feeling festive, there is nothing wrong with you. You’re not being negative or focusing on the wrong things. You’re responding to a time of year that places extra demands on our bodies, nervous systems, and emotional capacity.

For some, this season is genuinely enjoyable, connecting, and restful. For others, it is heavy or complicated. And for many, it is a mix of both.

Wherever you find yourself, your body is having the experience it is having. Supporting that experience, rather than arguing with it, often helps more than trying to override it.

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Here we are at the shortest day of the year 🕯️How are you doing? This is a quieter season.A yin time.A threshold that as...
21/12/2025

Here we are at the shortest day of the year 🕯️

How are you doing?

This is a quieter season.
A yin time.
A threshold that asks us to listen beneath the surface.

The Winter Solstice marks the longest night of the year and, with it, the subtle turning back toward light. The days begin to lengthen from here, slowly. Almost imperceptibly. And yet something has shifted.

This time of year already stretches many of our nervous systems. The festive time, the expectations, and the sensory load. There are times when we will be feeling that in a pronounced way, too : perhaps you've moved through a lot of intensity, or are in a period of recovery or healing. Maybe you're moving through perimenopause or menopause. Hormones play a role in how we buffer stress, and when they’re changing, we can feel more open, more sensitive, more affected.

Transitions in our life are no small thing. Theyre often a deep recalibration. One that can blur the lines between emotional, mental, spiritual, psychological. There can be moments of clarity, creativity, and insight here, even as the outer world feels harder to navigate or make sense of.

Moving through darker, quieter inner landscapes is not a failure or a detour. It’s part of living.

We struggle with these spaces partly because we live in a culture that avoids endings, has little room for grief, and rushes past what cannot be hurried.

This threshold doesn’t ask you to push through or transcend it.
It asks for attention.
For presence.
For the capacity to stay with what’s unfolding.

This is a time that asks something of you.
And it also belongs to you.

We get the message 'chin up' 'cheer up love, it might never happen', 'it could be worse' this kind of thing just causes ...
16/12/2025

We get the message 'chin up' 'cheer up love, it might never happen', 'it could be worse' this kind of thing just causes shut down, often from a young age. Have you ever heard something like this? How did it feel to receive? Id love to hear from you in the comments.

I felt inspired to write this post because I see daily how much extra suffering can be caused by the way we judge or shame our emotions - from the sense that some are 'good emotions' and some are 'bad emotions'. 😕 This creates so much more suffering on top of our primary experience.

We can unpick this! Somatic work helps us to embody our emotions, as sensation. Not all at once, but in a gradual way. So you can feel them, without them being overwhelming.

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Resilience isn't just about pushing through, but also : being able to pause, to slow down, to lean in to help when every...
10/12/2025

Resilience isn't just about pushing through, but also : being able to pause, to slow down, to lean in to help when everything feels heavy.

Pushing through is an amazing capability that we have, that we also need to get through at moments in time.

And then it can become what we've relied on so heavily that doing anything else feels out of reach. Being productive and pushing through can be closely tied up with our sense of self worth. and it can be terrifying to slow down.

Somewhere along the way, we can have coupled our sense of 'resilience' with 'pushing through' and also with being productive. This can happen from our personal life experiences of being praised for what we achieve, or being the strong one who holds it together for everyone.

But, there are costs to this being our only identity. It can be terrifying to slow down. There can be a sense that everything will fall apart if we slow down, or our life is at risk.

But, just like a muscle that can be strengthened, our ability to slow down, and to ok and even at ease with slowing down, can be trained over time. This is what we support in the Somatic Experiencing therapy that I offer.

I speak with so many people (and I relate to this in my own recovery) who are terrified of slowing down. Terrified of what will happen when they do slow down, and of letting go of the part of themselves that's so good at pushing through, and achieving.

In my experience, we don't need to let go of the part of us that has done so well to push through, to hold it all together, and to achieve. What we do explore is building more flexibility : so when we don't need to be pushing, we can actually rest, to feel excitement, awe, pleasure even. We get to welcome in new parts, that feel more at ease in rest, in curiosity, and pleasure. And as we do, we get to feel far less exhausted, more present, connected, vibrant and alive in our own life.

02/12/2025

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01/12/2025

Happy 1st December.
As we move into this time of the year, remember, sometimes our thoughts will be loud (this can happen any time, but this time of year can amplify for many of us). Just because a thought is loud, it doesn't mean it's true.

We can come back to the direct experience of being you, alive in this moment by connecting with the environment around you. You could even say '3, 2, 1..." I'm back". We can connect through our sense of touch, smell, heating, through our eyes, even taste. We can tune in to this sensory experience, and notice how it feels in our body.

If we can tune in to the absence of any threat in this moment, our body begins to feel safer, and we might notice we expand. Expansion is how our body responds to the sense of being safe in this moment.

Thoughts are energy which create sensation in the body and sometimes a disconnection between our body and mind. They create real, physical changes like a spike in adrenaline, and muscle tension, if they're of a stressful nature.

Connecting with our environment through our senses is something we can return to, over and over again to bring back a connection between our body and mind, and interrupt this stress loop from spiralling.

"3, 2, 1.... "I'm back"

Anything we practice, we strengthen.

What's your experience? Id love to hear from you in the comments. Something I've been thinking about lately, and somethi...
24/11/2025

What's your experience? Id love to hear from you in the comments.

Something I've been thinking about lately, and something I've learned along the way is that trauma and chronic shame don’t simply disappear. But we can relate to our experience in new ways, and as we do that a transformation does happen. Through somatic work, we can learn to feel what’s here without being swallowed by it. We build containment. We create room inside our bodies for nuance, for pause, for choice.

Bit by bit, the old patterns lose their grip.
Not because they’re gone, but because we can relate and experience them in new ways.

Somatic work helps us experience ourselves in new ways with more steadiness, more agency, and more compassion. It shows us how to carry what once felt unbearable, and how to return to ourselves when we wobble.

This is the quiet, powerful work of healing:
not fixing, but transforming the way we relate to our inner world. 💚

We're not starting at square one again. Tomorrow is a new day. 💚
19/11/2025

We're not starting at square one again.
Tomorrow is a new day. 💚

Good afternoon 🧡
12/11/2025

Good afternoon 🧡

Have you ever noticed how your ability to handle life's hard things varies from day to day? This fluctuation is normal. ...
11/11/2025

Have you ever noticed how your ability to handle life's hard things varies from day to day? This fluctuation is normal. But we also have a baseline nervous system capacity.

Think of it like a container that has both a foundation size (your baseline capacity) and daily flexibility. While your capacity naturally ebbs and flows with life's circumstances, rest, and stress levels, you also have a baseline capacity that can be gradually expanded over time.

Being overwhelmed has less to do with the intensity of our feelings and more to do with both our current and baseline capacity to hold them. Just like a cup can only hold so much water, our nervous system has its foundation size—but we can build a larger, more resilient container. Nervous system-centred therapy like Somatic Experiencing can help us with this. 

Through somatic therapy, we can work on expanding this baseline capacity while also learning to navigate daily fluctuations. It's not about reducing our feelings or learning to "control" them—it's about creating a more spacious foundation that can flex and adapt with life's rhythms.

Some signs you might be reaching your current capacity:

Feeling easily startled

Difficulty concentrating

Physical tension

Emotional reactivity

Sleep disruption

Sensory sensitivity

Building capacity is a gradual process. While your day-to-day capacity might fluctuate, building an awareness and relationship with your nervous system can create lasting expansion of your baseline ability to hold life's experiences.

Are you curious about working with your nervous system capacity? Let me know in the comments below 💚 or any questions? 

                 

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